We're seeing a sort of Wal-Martisation of this world - Pundit on BBC Radio 4
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HP launches ARM-based blade servers with Linux support
FLOGGER OF EXPENSIVE PRINTER INK HP has become the first major vendor to launch ARM-based servers.
HP launched its Redstone server range using low-power processors from both Intel and ARM vendor Calxeda. HP claims Redstone servers are designed for testing and proof-of-concept, presumably the concept that it can produce ARM-based servers.
The Calxeda Energycore processors in HP's Redstone servers are 32-bit processors designed for massively parallel workloads with an 80Gbits/s crossbar between processors. Calxeda claims that when the chip is mated to 4GB of RAM the whole setup consumes just 5W under load and idles at 0.5W.
HP's Redstone servers pack four ARM-processor laden drawers into just 4U of space. The firm claims a total rack capacity of 2,800 processors. HP claims significant improvements in power usage and server density, though customers will want to see how the ARM-based chips handle their particular workloads before throwing out existing x86 kit.
HP announced that it is working with Linux vendors such as Canonical and Red Hat to provide software support for its developmental server range. Worryingly for Microsoft, Linux might steal a march over its Windows Server operating system in the ARM server market.
Last week Canonical released Ubuntu 11.10, specifically pointing to ARM architecture support, with the firm claiming it has been working with Calxeda for years.
Although HP has launched its ARM-based servers, it might take time before large companies decide to tailor their workloads to suit the processors and buy ARM-based servers. A disadvantage at this point is the limit of 32-bit memory addressing, meaning that developers might have to work out how best to split large datasets.
Last week ARM announced its 64-bit ARMv8 architecture for servers, but it'll be a while before chips using that architecture tip up. For the moment HP is having to dip its toes into the server market with an older ARM chip architecture. µ
Tags: Hardware
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It's a bit ironic that HP that bet everything (in terms of its PA-RISC architecture) on Itanium is now going to experiment with ARM.
I give the ARM CPU a very high likelihood of success on servers, because massive data farms are always looking for better performance or efficiency, only one of which is available from the legacy x86 instruction set. Servers are one of the few places where legacy instruction sets matter less, and efficiency of the architecture and solid OS support can come to the forefront.
It will be good for the Linux Kernel development to have HP working with ARM. I've been working with an ARM server for sometime, running Debian 6 on it. First of all, not all distros are available for ARM. And the ones available do no support all chips (only ArmV5 in Debian, for example). Not all packages are available in the supported distros either. And some have awful performance (e.g. Ruby-on-Rails and Apache Passenger)
Then there is a debate at the Kernel development about supporting ARM going forward.
I hope HP will be able to intermediate all this and get at least a certified free version Linux for AMR.
This is the show stopper, not marketing. Once this is resolved, I am sure cheap hosted ARM servers will start to come up. In my opinion, an ARM server it is a beauty: 5W consumption and no fans (=absolutely silent).
Small firms yes Agree....however ARM is offering a product that will be significantly cheaper to run for the large data centers and 'Farms'. The cooling side is an enormous part of the ongoing running costs and money here will major driver so it will not be simply down to lower IT admin departments...
As ARM then becomes more established there will undoubtedly be a trickle down effect to the smaller companies
ARM is going nowhere fast in trying to take x86 business from Intel. No IT admin is going to consider technology like ARM that is lacking in the most important category - marketing. No blue men, no singing, no dancing, no entertaining - why would anyone want such a boring product?